Dry September
by NeuroticMuse413
Summary: To save her life, Edward changes Bella before he can properly fake her death and is forced to send her back to college as is. Her vampire powers have some unexpected consequences and Edward tries and fails to control his jealousy. Rated M. AU Vampires.
1. A Death Foretold

**DRY SEPTEMBER  
**By NeuroticMuse413

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**DISCLAIMER:** Don't own _Twilight_. Duh. Or any part of William Faulkner's "Dry September," after which this story is titled.

**SUMMARY:** AU. Edward sees Bella being attacked but is told not to interfere. Unable to stop himself, he pulls her back from the brink of death with a bite and a kiss and takes her back to her room where he gently puts her to sleep. When Bella wakes, she goes about her days as a normal girl. Then, come night, the blood lust begins and Edward must keep her in check without revealing himself - or his family - to this beautiful stranger.

**WARNINGS:** There's no rape, but definite violence, language, and all sorts of vamp-on-vamp sexiness. Enjoy.

**AUTHOR'S NOTE:** This story features different vampire rules. They'll be explained later on but well, just in case you miss it. 1) They can walk in the daylight without sparkling but it does hurt them with prolonged exposure, especially when they haven't eaten. 2) They share a deep psychological connection with the person they turn and are able to invade their dreams and thoughts. 3) They don't change appearance _so_ much after transformation but it's still noticeable. The fangs don't grow in for a while so they're supposed to stay with their sires. 4) They are not poisonous and may feed without killing. All other rules apply. For now. Special thanks to Jeny, the world's greatest beta.

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**CHAPTER ONE  
**A Death Foretold

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**BELLA**

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I still remember the last thing I ever ate. It was leftover pizza from that five-dollar place across the street from campus. I don't remember the taste, only that the dough had turned to rubber in the microwave but I'd been too starved to care and too overwhelmed with my history paper to get up and get something better back in my dorm. So, I smothered it in salt to hide the day-old taste and drowned it all with Coke, then went on to write my paper in the library before the librarians noticed I'd snuck in food and kicked me out. Again.

By midnight, I was hungry again but I was on deadline. I bullshitted the final paragraph and sent it to my teacher's email at exactly 11:57, three minutes before it was due. I told myself I would have gone back and proofread if I'd had time but that was a lie. My ego did not allow for the existence of grammatical mistakes. I let out a deep sigh of relief and slid down in my chair, stretching my arms over my head to get the jabbing pain out of the small of my back. Confident that my GPA would be intact the next morning and sure my roommates were done screwing, I got up a few hours later and walked to my death.

Edward tells me I shouldn't remember the attack. It's not human. They repress traumatic events, he says. But my death was not traumatic. It was painful, yes, but not traumatic. In fact, it was the most liberating experience of my life. Maybe I was never human to begin with, just half of the equation, waiting for Edward to show from between the trees.

It began with a walk. It was a dry September twilight, after two miraculously rainless days. It felt strange not having to drag my feet through puddles of water, dodging hidden potholes through the dark, empty street.

I saw the men in the distance, just over the bridge, but didn't give them any credence. I was used to seeing groups in corners, getting high or drunk, thinking they were safe because they kept in numbers. It was true. Edward was never able to get them all, but the slowest always suffer for the group.

I used to love to study group behavior in class. An individual was easy. He or she is usually rational. Sociology is where the truth lies, the power of society on the individual. It feels ironic now that I was destined to spend the rest of my life with a single other person, cast away from society.

The men did not kill me. Edward did. They did, however, _cause_ my death.

You see, I followed the sidewalk over the bridge to the dorms. The lake below was deeper than it looked and full of rocks. I walked towards the men without worry, my mind filled with a thousand irrelevant details. I didn't expect them to stop me. I looked up and found they'd blocked the way off the bridge. They turned their full attention to me the way a predator finds and corners their prey. I didn't understand what they could possibly want with me, not at that point. I was of no consequence. Sure, I was a woman, with all the relevant anatomical details, but I was hardly desirable.

I was just… Bella, who lived in the library and wore, well, fabric. I didn't really have any style, no attention to personal appearance beyond basic hygiene, didn't wear make-up of any sort. So why me? I'd never get an answer. For years, I would think my death as useless, pointless, a case of "wrong place at the wrong time." It would take an eternity for me to believe in fate.

They catcalled, whistled, shouted. They didn't scare me. I knew they were probably just townies and would leave me alone once they realized I wasn't interested in being their plaything. I never thought they had the guts to hurt me, until the leader came forth from the group. There's always one, the malignant personality that drives the collective. I would learn his name was James. He was an ugly bastard. Bottle blond, I noticed as he drew closer. I was about to be raped by a bottle blond. Great.

As he drew closer, his eyes reflected the light from the library behind me and I felt fear for the first time. That's when I met my first predator, the tall figure that would haunt my waking nightmares. He pressed me up against the edge of the bridge, a hand to my chest, gripping my shirt. My expression didn't change. I was still not impressed though I was sure he could hear my rapidly beating heart.

He was saying something. I'll never remember what because he was so drunk that the alcohol on his breath was making _me_ woozy, but I remember him trying to kiss me. He leaned in but his body just sort of collapsed on mine as though he didn't even have the strength. He dropped the beer bottle he had in one hand and I thought he was going to slide down my front like a cartoon.

I think he called me a frigid bitch and I decided they'd had their fun. My knee met his groin, twice, and he tumbled down into a fetal ball at my feet. I tried to run but the others had blocked me off. They were tipsy too and I thought I could pull a fake-out and get through their ranks. I'd watched my friends play football for so many years that I thought I could outsmart my burly attackers. I didn't consider James, curled up in a ball on the floor, as I ran backwards.

I knew I was clumsy. I didn't think it'd kill me.

I fell backwards and stumbled right over the edge of the bridge. That gasp would be my last breath. I didn't even get the chance to swim. All those kiddie classes at the Y, all for nothing. There was a sharp pain up my arms and legs when I hit the water. I saw the men scramble out of there and then there was just water, feet upon feet of it. Bubbles and foam and later grass enveloped me. I was awake long enough to scream when the back of my head crashed onto those rocks and then…

His arms were around me.

Edward.

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**EDWARD**

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My father tells me I'm the most human of us all because of my empathy but I know it is not empathy at all, rather envy and pious admiration for the species. These fragile things, my supposed prey, were the most elegant depiction of life nature had ever conjured for our entertainment. I was one of them once and I knew I drifted away from them with every decade. It was that useless desire to be like them again that fueled my separation from civilization for so many years.

I always knew I was a monster, ever since I woke up in my father's arms in the basement of a Chicago hospital with an uncomfortable bloodlust. I'd been left orphaned and sick. He was the only solution at the time. I forgave him long ago for I knew he had intended to save me, not condemn me. I'd been young yet when I forgave him.

_Anything_ was better than death, I thought. I was foolish.

It is too late to be angry at Carlisle. He became my father almost instantly. For a time, we were a family. He gave me a brother, Jasper, and sisters, Alice and Rosalie. He even gave me a mother to replace the one I'd lost. He taught me how to live without killing humans and how to keep my condition hidden, even from our own kinds. Humans were so easily seduced by a fashionable pea coat or a caring smile. They took one whiff of those pheromones and I was welcomed into their doors. Years ago, I had thought that granted me the right to play judge, jury, and executioner. Parts of me still think that way, but I always listened to Carlisle.

It was he who found me again, looking the streets for murderers, rapists… It was his power over me that set me straight, snapped me out of my frenzy. A vampire's sire is stronger than a parent, the pull to obey them too strong for even the most rebellious of new vampires to deny. That's why I didn't pull her away the instant I saw she was in trouble. I could have walked her home. I could have fought off the attackers effortlessly. I could have moved from my spot on the other side of the lake, but I never did.

_Stop, Edward,_ Carlisle warned in my head. _I know what you're thinking. I know what you want to do but you will only expose us, child. The life of one stranger does not equate to the lives of many._

_I can hear their thoughts! You know what they want to do to her! I can't just stand here and watch! _I answered.

_You must! _He didn't need to elaborate or explain. I knew the reasons why he begged me to let her die. The need to obey was also too strong.

I knew that was the rational thing to say, to do. I loved my family. They were the only reason I didn't go to the Volturi years ago and beg to be killed. But I couldn't do it. I saw her face in the distance as clearly as though in sunlight. I couldn't see fear so I didn't move. I saw her plan. For a moment, I thought she could get away. There was an opening. She could have if she'd just stepped over the idiot on the floor. I can't really judge her actions in the moment.

Even after she fell, I thought I could relax. It was water, surely safer and softer than the low railing on the bridge or the planks or the soil beneath my feet. That's when I heard the sound in the distance, slight even to my superhuman ears. It was the sound of bone cracking, a skull splitting underwater.

The men scrambled out of there by the time I got to the railing and jumped in, completely oblivious of any onlookers or the voice in my head, compelling me to stop. I walked the rocks like I was one of them and brought her limp body to my chest. I caressed her cheek for a second before pulling her up.

The second felt like a decade to me but it had been years since I held a woman in my arms like this, with no fear of killing her. The water hid her scent. I was not swayed by what I would later discover was an intoxicating, pheromone-charged aroma. When I tell her I fell in love with her at that moment, I am of course lying. But I felt the pull to her then. I felt the strings of fate tying us together.

I heard her heart slow and the blood rush out of her wound. The water did not allow for the blood's appeal to reach me quite yet. I held my breath, just in case. I propelled us off the rocks to the surface. From there, getting back on the bridge was no problem at all for someone like me. I set her down on her side. I knew she didn't have time to take a deep breath underwater. Her lungs were not filled and she hadn't quite been drowning yet. It was the hole in the back of her skull that was killing her.

I thought I could save her but, more importantly, I felt I _had_ to. I felt responsible for listening to Carlisle when every cell in my body told me that I was there to save her. I had to have been. After all, I had never known Alice to be wrong.

I took her in my arms again and started running for the library. My home was beneath. I took the entrance on the side, quite aware of time, and ran the staircase underground. I didn't have a bed but I had a comfy couch for reading. I put her down gently on her side and went for my medical supplies. They were necessary when feasting on co-eds. Though we were careful, it was possible for the meal to wake and try to fight back and then who knows what arteries might be nicked. It had happened to Rose on more than one occasion but she always depended on looks and sex to mesmerize her prey. I depended on chloroform, among other things I still try to forget.

I never made it back in time, even with my inhuman speed. I could hear her heart like a slow drum, fading fading fading. And then, it almost completely stopped. I dropped my medicalf bag and was by her side in an instant, holding her hand. She didn't squeeze back. She wasn't even awake, unaware of that final beat.

I could have left her to go then the way I'd done so many others that I'd found half-dead, that I'd killed myself. Carlisle's strength was begging me to let her go. But I didn't.

I gasped, readying myself for the final beat, and the blood scent finally reached me. I couldn't let that scent just wither and die. It got into my head so quickly that I didn't even realize what I was doing until I was wiping the blood away from my lips. My own blood. I tore at my wrist and brought the poison to her lips.

Carlisle had been begging me to let her die. For all intents and purposes, I did.

-

I watched her sleep for a few hours from across the room. She didn't move all morning so I eventually closed my eyes and let the sounds tell me she was changing. Her heart received a sudden jolt from my poisonous blood and spread it throughout her body. I could hear the flow in her veins. I could hear tiny whines that would have escaped anyone else. I studied and memorized the curves of her face. Those would change as well in a few hours, just slightly. She was already growing pale and the bruises would soon blossom under her eyes. I wondered what color they'd been before. In a year, they would be as gold as mine.

Around midday, the healing had taken full speed. The movement and growth of bone on the back of her head could be heard all around the loft, at least to me.

The hunger was getting stronger. I hadn't had anything to drink in a week and having her blood on my hands – I had washed them a dozen times and changed my shirt twice though that hardly seemed to matter – was making the hunger worse.

For someone such as me, who had seen and would see so many days pass and so many past lovers sleep, this was the longest, most painful short period of my life. It was the uselessness, the adrenaline running through my veins and the possibility of detection. A dozen people had been in the area, not counting the thugs that assaulted her.

It would soon be sunset again and she would rise. Hungry.

I started to fret as I felt the sun go down outside. I didn't need windows to know. My clocks were internal. I called to the voices in my head, to Carlisle on the other side of the country, but heard only my own inner voice.

_Carlisle, what do I do now?_ I begged but he never answered. I wondered if I had finally done something to disappoint my father. After all, I had so little personal experience changing people. I was sure I'd done it right but I wasn't ready to be a father to a fledgling vampire. It'd been too long since I'd been changed and I didn't remember much. I just remembered my father's voice in my head. Always. And the feeling of safety that came with it.

So I closed my eyes and went searching for her in the darkness. At first, there was only Carlisle's light and the faint murmurs made by my family members. I searched and searched until my head ached for the first time in a decade. Then the sun went down and her light overwhelmed me. I stumbled back and my eyes shot open. I gasped again and quickly covered my mouth. I cursed softly and walked out into the bathroom on the other side of the loft, trying to evade her delicious scent.

_Who's there?_ her voice sounded in my head. She was scared, I could tell. I hid in the shower and pulled the glass door shut. I hugged my knees and concentrated. I could see her in my head, her face enveloped in the light and mist. She was gagging on air outside, still not accustomed to her new lungs. I shut my eyes tighter. _Please! I can see you there. Who are you? What's happened?_

I swallowed my fears and prepared myself for a long explanation. I knew she would not remember right away so I took her someplace safer. A fantasy. I rifled through my memories quickly and found the remnants of Carlisle's castle in Scotland. It'd been the last time the whole family was together. I longed to be there with them now and my imagination dragged her along.

Suddenly, we were no longer in a library basement. We were on the lawn of a palace with large white columns and a maze of hedges. I hadn't been there since the '50s so Jasper's motorcycle was still parked up against one of the columns in the distance. I looked around, making sure all the details, down to the bushes of red roses in the distance were correct, before addressing her concerns.

"You're dreaming," I lied. Suddenly, we weren't in my head anymore. We were in our own little world, something I had never done before, not even with Carlisle.

She wrapped her arms around her thundering stomach and looked at me with a raised eyebrow, obviously suspicious. She wasn't an idiot. She certainly wasn't gullible and she didn't seem to be accepting my presence as her superior, her sire. I figured it was just me who did not know how to properly command.

"A dream would never tell me I'm dreaming. You're a crappy liar. Also, if this were a dream, you'd be Brat Pitt."

I smirked against my will, strangely intrigued. It had been years since I'd allowed someone other than my family into my inner sanctum, certainly never conjured up a fantasy land for the person to play. "How do you explain our presence here? Your dress?"

She looked down suddenly at the black dress I'd conjured for her. I could tell she was starting to get agitated.

"Stop breathing," I told her. "Stop forcing your body to remember to breathe. You don't need it here. It'll make you feel better."

"Where is here?" she insisted through gritted teeth. "And don't tell me this is a dream."

I didn't answer, merely stared at her. I slid my hands into my pockets and walked around her tiny frame, taking in every detail for my great mental warehouse. I could already feel the sense of ownership and an odd admiration. She was not just a new toy, one I now had to spend the rest of eternity caring for. She was my new friend. I smiled madly, in the dream as well as real life.

"How do you know?" I whispered, my brow furrowed.

She reached out into the space between us and cupped my face with her hands. I hadn't been touched like that in years. I froze and tensed into stone. Her gentle brown eyes locked on mine and silently pleaded for the games to stop.

"What are you?" she asked.

I gulped and ran my hands up her arms, never happier that it wasn't real. I didn't think myself capable of that in real life, of that tiny flicker of intimacy. I pulled her off me gently. She didn't fight. She was mesmerized by something in my eyes, something of the animal buried deep that had somehow made its way to the surface just for her.

"I'm a friend," I answered with a sad smile, trying to reassure her, gripping her arms as tightly as I could so she'd know I was serious. "This is a dream and you're going to wake up soon and then… you'll never want to sleep again. But it's okay because you'll always have this place. Look around. Anytime you need me, just find me. I'll be right here."

She nodded and the uncontrollable urge to trust began to sink in. I could tell by the way her every muscle relaxed. She fell forward onto her knees. I followed, crushed her to my chest. I let the dream melt around us and I was back in my shower floor and she was in the other room. I thought I was strong enough to move so I slid open the glass door and hovered over her limp body. She'd returned to sleep, just as I'd commanded her. It was the last she'd ever be able to sleep, at least without me.

She nuzzled into my chest as I carried her through the shadows of night. I took her license from her back pocket and her student ID. Her name was Isabella Swan and she didn't photograph well. She also apparently lived in the Easterbrook dorms, room 215. I had to wait for a few people to clear the hallway before going up to the door and sliding her ID. It wouldn't open otherwise. I slowly ascended the stairs and opened her door, seemingly unlocked.

I realized why upon entering. There was nothing inside. It was a bed, a trunk at the foot of it, and a writing desk. The desk was littered with papers and columns of books, most from my beloved library. I set her down on her bed and began to scan through her papers. She used big words for no absolute reason and didn't space her paragraphs well. Ah, how I missed the college years. I was so naïve the first time around.

Her books were beautiful though, from all ages and all genres. I knew they weren't for any class and smiled brighter. I was too entertained by them to notice the footsteps outside. Before I could leave, the door opened and a man with broad shoulders and curly hair stepped inside. We both froze, until his eyes fell upon Bella in bed, curled up on her side.

"She had a rough night," I quickly explained. "She asked me to drop her off. I just wanted to make sure she was okay."

He chuckled. "Bella? _My_ Bella? A rough night? What, did a book stack fall on her?" he joked, coming to cover her with sheets. I didn't need sheets so it hadn't crossed my mind to cover her up.

"No, she was celebrating something and got a little drunk," I lied. I didn't want him in her room a second longer. She was _my_ Bella, not his, though I never thought the exact words. "She was kind of a lightweight."

"You the designated driver or somethin'?" asked the man.

I shrugged. "Something like that."

The man nodded and put out a hand. "Well, thanks, man. I'm Emmett."

I looked at it for a moment. I had to remember to rein back my jealousy and not squeeze his bones to dust. "I'm Edward," I offered softly, hoping he'd forget it as soon as he heard it. There was power in a name and I didn't want this Emmett holding any power over me.

He let go of my hand quickly and leaned over to get a block of post-its off the desk. He wrote her a quick note and stuck it to the back of her door on the way out. He waved and closed it loudly, obviously in a hurry. I pondered whether or not to read it and the dozen others crumbled up on the floor by the trash can. They were in different handwritings but most were from this Emmett person.

I couldn't help it. After all, it's not like he made any effort to hide it. It read:

"Bell, don't do anything I wouldn't do. C U in class. – Emmett."

I chuckled softly and looked back at the ever-more pale creature in bed. I tried to put it out of my mind and wrote my own little note to put up beneath his, in my handwriting. I couldn't think of anything but I wanted to leave something of myself behind for when she woke and the nightmare began. Only two words came to mind.

"Be safe. – E"

I hid it beneath Emmett's note so it wouldn't be too obvious. I bent down to kiss her cheek, went to shut off the lights, and jumped out the window effortlessly. I memorized which one it was, planning many future visits, and returned to my monster's lair where I had already begun to plan out this new eternity. It would be dangerous. It would be painful in ways I never imagined, but that's the pain that comes with reawakening a brittle, old heart.

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**Chapter Two** coming soon! Bella wakes up in her room and finds… changes. Hilarity ensues as she starts attracting attention from the opposite sex.

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**Reviews are like manifestations of Brad Pitt.**


	2. Nightmares Don't Wear Chanel

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**CHAPTER TWO  
**Nightmares Don't Wear Chanel

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**BELLA**

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I woke up to the scent of blood and last week's chocolate wrappers still in the garbage can. The neighbors next door were making coffee and the gay couple two floors down were smoking up some pot. The fourteen TVs that were on in the building, six iPods including the jogger outside blaring Ricky Martin's "Livin' the Vida Loca," and the pitter-patter of feet everywhere made me want to jump out the freaking window. I held onto my head and stumbled towards the bathroom door.

Normally I would praise the god that granted me a single room but that day, I was desperate for someone to hold my hair back while I vomited up all that crappy pizza. Ten minutes later, I wobbled back to bed, shut the curtains over my head to keep out the light, and tried to go back to sleep. I had no idea what time it was or what day it was or how I'd gotten there. All I knew was that no matter how tightly I shut my eyes, I couldn't fall back to sleep.

I figured I was just tired but after counting my 1,356th consecutive sheep, I gave up trying. The sounds were dwindling but my stomach didn't quite settle. I was so hungry but every time I tried to think of something to eat, I couldn't conjure up the desire for food. I thought about ice cream because it had once made me feel better but the sheer thought of it made me run to the bathroom all over again. I started freaking out when I saw the vomited blood. My throat felt sore and scratchy like I'd scraped it with all the dry heaving.

There wasn't anything left in my stomach to throw up. It was the world that was making me sick.

I stabilized a little come sunset. I was tired of just lying there in pain so I showered, dressed, and was headed out the door when I saw the post-its. One was obviously Emmett's but the one beneath in the elegant cursive… Emmett couldn't even loop his y's, let alone write calligraphy.

"Be safe…"

Safe from what? Myself? I slipped the note into my back pocket and told myself to ask Emmett about it later. It occurred to me on the way downstairs that I had no idea what day it was or how many classes I'd missed while sleeping and I didn't seem to care. I went to the cafeteria first because I knew Emmett was probably there with the others having dinner at this time of night.

Em was always a bit predictable in his unpredictability but I've never let him know. He liked to believe he was a reckless party boy, sans the fraternity, but he still texted me where he was, who he was with, and when he'd be home every chance he got. He and I hailed from the same no-name town so we stuck together. We hadn't been very close during high school. He was a jock. I was a nerd, but he got a scholarship and we met up here again. Since then, we were stuck like glue.

He was always running around one football field or another and I was in the library or class or the quietest, most far-away gazebo or bench I could find on campus so we'd developed the post-it system. He left me something on my door since I never locked it. He had a roommate so I'd stick the notes on the underside of the clipboard hanging outside his door. Post-its fit into pockets much better than clipboards and since we were always on the run, it made sense to us. To everyone else, we were always the weird kids with the little orange pieces of paper sticking out the back of our pants.

"Hey you!" he called in the distance. I dragged myself over. "You done celebrating?"

I gave him a one-armed hug and sat down across from his girl of the week, a redhead with obvious emotional issues. I couldn't even tell her expression under all those piercings. I greeted her and she seemed friendly enough for the two seconds she was there.

"What exactly am I celebrating?" I mumbled, dropping my forehead down onto the relatively clean lunch table. He chuckled and patted my head like I was a pet cat.

"You've been totally hung over the last three days, Bell. Since your friend told me you were celebrating, I just thought maybe you'd won the lotto or something. Or you two had locked yourselves in the room and _really_ celebrated all weekend."

A face found me in the darkness, a trigger memory shortly followed by tiny other glimpse. Men on the bridge. _His_ arms around me. Shivering with death. A mansion in a dream and the loss of Brad Pitt. I snapped up off the table and looked at Emmett's playful smirk.

"What friend?" I practically growled.

"You know. What's his name? The one you asked to drop you off after the party."

I raised an eyebrow. "What party, Em?"

His smirk quickly died and he leaned in to whisper, "Bell, you don't think they gave you something, do you? Roofies? I mean, memory loss is a side-effect and you still look pretty fucked up. It's not like you party a lot so you might not have known how to watch out for that stuff."

I tried to conjure up a memory of a party but all I saw was a face, a kind face with sad, golden eyes and a sarcastic smirk. I tried to think of fear but all I saw was that face and I felt safe.

"No, I just think I took some tequila thinking it was rum or something. Didn't even notice till I was throwing up all morning," I lied. I remembered seeing what three little shots of tequila did to a mammoth like Emmett. To me, it would surely explain my symptoms, even though I knew no alcohol had touched my lips in months and I'd never been at any party.

He made a knowing murmur and took a big bite of his sandwich. "Well he seemed like a nice guy to me. He was looking at your books when I came in with this big goofy grin like an eighth-grader in love."

My tired, drifting eyes snapped to his face again. "He was in my room?"

Emmett nodded. "Yeah. He was a looker. All fancy. Just what kind of party were you at anyway?"

I didn't much care for his mocking tone but I let it pass because it proved that my dream wasn't a dream. And if it was, I might as well keep dreaming now.

-

I had "slept" for three days, it seemed. I aced the paper, apparently, though I'd missed a stats quiz that I'd have to make up. Still, all that seemed irrelevant. As I walked the sidewalks from class to class, I looked for the pale features of my mystery man in the faces of others. I saw men with strong jaws like him, maybe even the same lips or almond-shaped eyes or even the way his hair stood up and back messily. But they were not him.

A strange thing started to occur. I noticed that the more I looked around, the more the men started to look back. The lustful looks I got! It only made the hunger worse, though I still couldn't bring myself to eat or drink anything. I quickly learned not to miss food, not if it only hurt me. It would take longer to get over the loss of sleep but Edward would help with that later.

I did enjoy the time though. All I had was time now. To think, to read and reread, to do homework, to watch TV (which I hadn't done since I started college)… I even thought about getting a job. The weariness slowly went away and then I was just a ball of energy with no circadian rhythm.

I was invited to a hell of a lot more parties, which I didn't even know went on before that night. My classmates' grades suddenly made more sense. I'd tire Emmett out dancing till 4:00 in the morning and gravitated towards Denny's restaurants for the space and open doors. My dorm neighbors still screwed like rabbits so, to escape the now even louder squishy noises, I was rarely at home except to shower and pick up or drop off stuff.

I returned to my dorm to pick up my Stats book two weeks after my transformation. I caught a look at myself in the full-length mirror. My hair was pulled back in a ponytail but I could see the changes already. A part of me had even expected to see them, thanks to the tiny glimmer of my mystery man in the back of my mind. My skin looked flawless like chiseled marble and my eyes looked larger, intense. The dark color was slowly being overtaken by gold like it was seeping in from the edges and overtaking me. This was the last I really saw of my old self.

Afterwards, all I saw were remnants of myself. The shape of my face, the color of my hair, my general silhouette… those stayed mine. The change was in the details but that was all that mattered to the hungry eyes that looked me over as I walked around campus.

I went to open the door to leave and saw the new notes. Little orange squares with blue ink. I instantly froze. Some were Emmett, inviting me to yet another party. That boy was insatiable for a human. Some were reminders to call my folks. But one caught my attention, so much so that I closed the door completely and set down my bag by my feet.

"Found me yet?" it read.

I ran my index finger over the ink, smudging it. I gasped suddenly and looked around, expecting to see him standing there with a pen in hand but finding nothing. I pulled open the door and ran into the hallway, all the way to the elevator and out the front door. There was no one. I slowly made my way back to my dorm. I went to get my bag, horribly disappointed, and found yet another note.

"You know where to look."

I growled and jumped up and down like an idiot. I checked the closet, the bathroom, under the bed... It's not like there were any places he could hide. I could feel him smiling inside my head. I ran my hands through my hair and spun around one last time. Then, I started getting crazy. I looked up slowly, checking the roof just in case. I sighed with relief to find it clear. A breeze caught the size of my face and I turned to the half-open window. The bastard had left me a clue.

I looked out the window but there was no one hanging off the side or wearing expensive climbing equipment and no one was screaming bloody murder downstairs because someone had been creepy enough to crawl up the tree by my window.

I shook my head and whispered to myself, "You're an idiot, Bella Swan."

I took my bag and hurried out before more squishy noises started somewhere in the building. I'd never need porn again. I went to class, hid out at the library for a few hours, and began what can only be described as an extremely premature thesis. I was still undergrad with no declared major. I had no idea what I was doing.

I closed my laptop that morning and looked around. Another student had fallen asleep in the distance, a redheaded girl. Her laptop was left open and it seemed she'd been watching a movie because the light flickered from the screen onto her whole frame. She hid her face in her arms. I didn't envy her. I wasn't tired anymore. But something about that girl stuck with me. It was not me who found her interesting. It was the sarcastic smirk in my head, telling me to pay attention.

I thought back to the mysterious notes. Where exactly was I supposed to look that I hadn't already? And that's when it hit me. I felt him always because he was always with me. More flashes of that night came into view inside my head. His eyes pleaded me to remember. _Anytime you need me, just find me. I'll be right here._

The castle. It called to me when Edward couldn't bring himself to do so. I looked down at my arms on the table and slowly, reluctantly, folded them before me. I closed my eyes and rested my head and in a few moments, I was back on the front steps of the grand mansion. I didn't go inside but I did look around, harried. He was nowhere and I began to wonder if I dreamed up the place all by myself.

"You came!" he called out of nowhere. I saw him walking towards me in the distance and stood off the steps. He wore a black suit, very old fashioned but, by the emblem on the front pocket, definitely Chanel. The rational side of me wanted to be afraid but how could I be afraid of something so beautiful. His white undershirt was a little open and his trousers made him look he'd just come back from a ride through the English countryside on a thoroughbred.

"I did? I did," I mumbled quickly, trying to compose myself.

He smiled and wrapped his arms around me, lifting me off the ground effortlessly. "I thought you'd forgotten too much and wouldn't know how to find me."

He set me back down and met my bewildered eyes, full of confusion. "So you left the notes? You're E?"

He looked down and blushed. "I'm sorry. I—" he began but I put up a hand to stop him.

I took a step forward so we were nose to nose and gritted my teeth, keeping back the slowly-seeping anger. "What am I? What are we? And why does it hurt every second I'm away from you?"

I prayed my voice didn't falter but there was no hope. I couldn't hide my emotions in this place, certainly not from him. His sad eyes fell on my arms by my side. I faintly remembered the last time, his hands running up my arms tenderly. I felt something begin to burn inside me, a tiny spark deep within my chest. I would later confuse this spark for many things.

Lust, love, hunger, fear...

He took my hand gingerly. I felt compelled to let him though I knew it was in my power to deny him, a power no one before me had held.

He took a deep breath as he always would before telling me hard news and answered, "We're… vampires."

-----

**EDWARD**

-----

I had waited so long for her to remember. I knew her hunger would only get worse and worse as her body slowly changed but I couldn't bring myself to reenter society, not even for this beautiful creation of mine. I could feel her looking for me in all the wrong places. So I left her notes the way her friend had done and waited in our secret place.

It's all I could do for weeks. I thought I might be able to contact Carlisle before then but ever since Bella entered my home, Carlisle was gone. It's not like I had a phone or email. I lived in a loft beneath the library. If my brothers and sisters wanted to know how I was doing, they'd ask Carlisle to contact me telepathically. But I'd never been alone for this long and Bella was technically the last family I had at the moment, even if she didn't know it.

I felt obligated to tell her the truth, no matter how awful. I knew she would forget most of it when she opened her eyes again, just as she'd done before, but I knew I could at least leave her with the imprint of what she was and how to live her new death.

"We're… vampires, Bella," I told her bluntly. She stepped back. I wondered if she had suspected because the usual signs of grief did not show on her face at all. I nodded towards the front steps of the castle for us to sit. This would be a long explanation. "I'm sorry but that was the only way to save your life."

"I died?" she asked after a moment of silence. She stared off at the gardens before us. I took her hand again, squeezing it reassuringly in my lap.

"You were being attacked. You fell over the railing on the blue bridge outside the library. You hit your head on the rocks. I'm sorry but if I hadn't interjected, you surely would have."

"But I wasn't dead, was I? Am I dead now?"

"Your body is. You won't want anything but blood. You won't sleep, won't ever tire once you give up your humanity…"

Her large, wandering eyes found mine again. "My humanity?" she screeched, finally beginning to understand the severity of the situation. "So you _killed_ me?"

I readied myself for the inevitable explanation. I had been foolish for ever thinking this would be easy. "That's not what I meant. See, the hunger is just going to slowly build up until you crave blood. You won't be able to stop yourself. Once you finally drink, you will leave all human weaknesses behind. All human desires. You won't remember the taste of food. You'll grow cold. But the parts of you that make you you, your personality and wit and compassion and stubbornness, will remain. The most beautiful parts of you will live, Bella."

She gulped down, obviously still confused but calmer. "You don't know me," she reminded. "You don't know if I'm smart or compassionate. I could have been anyone, done anything. I could have been dangerous to you."

I shook my head adamantly, praying she understood. "No, see, some of us come with special abilities. I have the gift to penetrate minds, get a sense of a person. This is how I believe I can project this place into our minds, why I can feel your hand even though I know we are not in the same room. As the person who… well, turned you… I feel… _connected_ to you. I can't seem to read your mind but I can talk to you, if you allow me the chance. I can help you when the hunger gets worse."

That's when the tears began and she might as well have taken my heart in her fist and squeezed. I hated seeing her in pain, much the way Carlisle hated seeing _me_ suffer. I blamed the bond. She shook her head and fell forward, leaning into my chest. "Please. You killed me once. Kill me again. Don't make me become a murderer. Please tell me there's a way to get out of this."

"No no no!" I quickly corrected. "You can feed without killing, Bella. My father, Carlisle, has taught our family to live on the blood of animals for years. You don't need to kill. I would stop you before I let you become a monster. I promise you."

Her shoulders fell but she didn't lift her cheek from my chest. I wrapped my arms around her, cautiously. I wasn't sure how to touch her. I was used to being affectionate with family (Esme was a hugger) but I had just met this girl and the last thing I wanted was to scare her away. I figured hugs were fine since they seemed to comfort her and she leaned in of her own accord.

I let her cry for a while longer, though time didn't really exist in our heads the way it did in the real world. It could have gone on for hours, days… Anything longer and we would start to miss the real world.

When she finally pulled away from my now-soggy chest, she said, "I don't want to go back to school like this. I shouldn't be around people."

I brushed her hair back from her face and answered softly, "You have to, I'm afraid. It's a burden for us, I know, but I didn't have time to fake your death. If you had disappeared for the time it takes to control the hunger, it would have raised too much suspicion. Your world will be more accepting of your differences if is a slow progression."

"When will I have to feed? How long do I have before I start to die?"

"You are still new. Because you don't yet know the feel of blood in your system, it won't happen for at most a month after changing."

"I haven't seen you in two weeks. I have two weeks left then."

I nodded. "But I told you. I will have taught you by then."

She stood and started to pace on the lawn, kicking her heels off. I thought she'd like the red, flowing dress I'd conjured but she apparently wasn't that type of girl, no matter how beautiful she looked. She tried to pace faster but the dress was too tight. She looked to me for permission. I nodded and she ripped up the side with her bare hands, frustration and anger driving her strength more than her condition. I smirked but quickly hid it with my hand.

I lingered on the steps, leaning forward onto my knees as I watched her think. I wished I could penetrate her mind the way I did so many others but it seemed impossible to even want to try.

"I didn't remember you when I woke up last time. How do we know what you teach me here is going to transfer over into reality?" she asked, question after reasonable question.

I just laughed and shrugged. "I can only hope you remember more each time. Until then… well, we'll always have post-its."

She laughed drily and lingered on my face a second too long. It caught me off guard. She had a way of looking at me that made me think she could read my mind the read others'. I wondered if, in this new place, the doors swung both ways. Then, she said the words that would haunt me for days, "I'm sorry about your family. It must be lonely without them but you didn't need to leave them."

I stood right up and the inner monster bared its teeth. "How do you know about them?" I asked.

She shook her head as though snapping herself out of a trance and began to recoil back into herself. "I'm sorry," she said, genuinely afraid. It was true that Carlisle's sudden silence was driving me insane with all sorts of worries but I would never willingly hurt her. She had to know this. I had compelled it of her. She didn't seem to have heard that final thought, the assurance of safety, because she was already walking backwards away from me, holding onto the sides of her dress. I hurried down the stairs after her but she was soon running out to the hedges. I watched her disappear into light and then I was alone again. It seemed I would alone for some time yet, wondering what it was she'd seen of my long past that had scared her so.

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_The official playlist and all sorts of pics have been added to my profile so go check it out. The motorcycle pic is up as well as all of Edward's suits and the castle for all you banner makers. _

**Reviews are better than eighth-graders in love. **


	3. The Man Called E

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**CHAPTER THREE**

The Man Called E.

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**BELLA**

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My head shot up off the library desk. I must have screamed because the people now gathered at nearby tables were looking at me funny. I felt too triumphant to care. I'd finally slept! Or so I thought. Such earthly things were unimportant to me now but I knew I'd have to go back again soon. There was something waiting for me on the other side. That face. The heavenly face of the beautiful man with the golden eyes.

Now, whenever I thought of my personal phantom, I felt what could only be described as overwhelming loneliness. It was strong like an errant scent I couldn't forget. This was a silly sentiment, of course. One couldn't smell loneliness, but one could certainly see it in those eyes. I found myself closing my own in class just to better see the image of his face.

I didn't go looking for the castle inside my mind again. Something warned me away, making me put off my inevitable return as long as possible.

A clock now ticked inside, certainly biological. It was the vampire disease doing away with my human weaknesses bit by bit. In one week, I would crave blood. I could feel it coming, even if I didn't know what it was I wanted. In a week, I would have to go back to the castle.

In the meantime, I had Emmett to keep me company. I had never wanted company more. My mystery man's loneliness was devastating. I didn't go to anymore parties, suddenly too afraid of crowds, but we had frequent study dates where he always managed to say, "Bella, you study too damn much. Haven't you learned everything by now?"

Two days after my last rest, I finally replied, "Yup, but it's just too much fun rereading everything, even if I remember it or if I know it by heart. You get taken away to different places."

He merely scoffed and added, "Even calculus?"

I laughed and pretended to sip a cup of coffee. "OK, not calculus," I whispered, my eyes fixed on the screen of my laptop.

He dramatically slammed his pen on the table, leaned back in his chair, and shut his book. He gave me a look in my peripheral vision that demanded I do the same. I obliged just because you just didn't say no to someone as charismatic and wholehearted as Emmett.

"What's up with you?" he asked unceremoniously. "I'm not as dumb as I look. You got something going on on the side and I want details."

I scoffed. "You wanna be my girl friend now? Sure you want to know all the details? I actually have some questions about my menstrual cycle that I wouldn't mind—" I joked.

"Stop right there!" he shouted, lifting a hand in the air. "No, I mean you look happy and sad all the time and I'm wondering if you're just bipolar and forgot to mention it."

I smirked. He really wasn't as dumb as he acted sometimes. I would never have talked to him in high school because of how he liked others to perceive him but he really was more observant than I gave him credit for. He also wasn't the glorified sex god people I thought he was. One would think that someone who put as much effort in maintaining his strength and overall athleticism would be superficial but Emmett didn't do it for the girls. He did it for himself.

I was silent for a moment, smiling at him appreciatively. "No," I answered. "I'm not bipolar. I guess I just get lost in my head and forget, but don't worry. You're always number one to me, honey."

He lit up but he didn't let it go. "No, really. What's been going on with you lately? I can't put my finger on it but you're different. You're… prettier?"

I cackled, choking on my own spit. "Uhm… I exfoliated?"

He shrugged. "Must be it."

I thought about going on with the lie but this was Emmett and I really didn't have anybody else. I shut my laptop and leaned in over the table. "Hey, can you keep a secret? I mean I don't really have anyone else and I know I can trust you but I just want you to know that this isn't me playing around."

He blinked twice and gulped so I knew he understood the severity of my confession.

I licked my lips, buying time, before continuing, "I met a guy."

His wide smile made me stop. He instantly scooted in closer, moving all books and papers onto the chair dramatically. "I knew it!" he hissed. "Go on. Go on!"

"I don't know his name. I call him E. I can't get him out of my head. We met a while ago but he's in my dreams, if you can call them that. I don't remember what we talk about but I feel like I need to see him again and run away at the same time."

Emmett raised both eyebrows. "You mean Edward?"

"What?! How do you know his name?" I hissed, clutching his collar with my mighty new fists. He weren't three times my size, I imagine he would have crapped his pants at my ferocious stare.

"I told you! I met him when he dropped you off after the party. He told me his name was Edward. I figured you knew!"

"Edward?" I echoed softly. It felt so familiar, almost like it was my own name, something I should know by heart but never had to say aloud myself.

"Yea, he's the spiffy guy. Why does he scare you so much?"

"He doesn't!" I corrected. I didn't know why. I just knew I had to, an automatic response. "Well, I guess he doesn't. I feel like I've had whole conversations with him, important stuff, but I can't remember. I think it was all the liquor that night. Maybe I'm just going crazy. I don't know, but I think he was special."

"Well, you know I'm pretty handy with a pencil. I could draw up a sketch of him for you. Might help you remember."

I'd seen some of the drawings he did of girls around school, girls he only saw once or twice. It was a gift he was granted by nature but he never bothered to pursue. I respected him for it. He didn't just go with what he was given. He strived for something more.

I nodded vehemently. "I'd love that!"

I also loved that Emmett didn't dismiss me as a lunatic that instant. He quickly pulled out a sketchpad and got to work. I went back to my laptop but he didn't open his books again all night, focusing entirely on his drawing. I chuckled softly to myself at the enviable ease with which he discarded schoolwork.

He finished it around two in the morning and handed it to me triumphantly, stretching out and yawning afterwards. He didn't even wait for my reaction before bidding me goodnight and dragging himself back to the dorm. He knew it was flawless. It was a three-quarters view of Edward's face, his eyes downturned and his grin wide just as Emmett had described.

My hands started to tremble at the thought of him. The concrete portrait in front of me made the dreams come rushing back. I didn't remember much, just the word _vampire_. I dropped the sketch on the table and slide my chair back. The shivers wouldn't stop as though he were standing over my shoulder, watching me. It was too eerie.

I hid the portrait between the pages of my lit book and tried to relax but couldn't. It wasn't Edward's face. It was death slowly taking over my body. Another part of me had gone and my body was once again shocked into mourning. This time, it was the knowledge that this man and I were going to be linked for eternity. How I didn't go into a complete nervous breakdown right then and there, I have no idea.

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**EDWARD**

-----

I don't think I moved from my couch all two days. I was going to need a bed if I planned to keep this up. I kept my eyes closed and lingered in the castle of our creation, trying to come up with ways to fix it up for next she visited. It became a project, _another_ pathetic hobby to add to my list of pathetic hobbies. This one was bordering on sad and demented.

I spent my time walking the castle, coming up with more rooms from memory. Others came from my imagination. I wanted her to have a beautiful sanctuary to come home to, since I had no control over this strange bond we'd developed and how it had manifested into this manor of memory.

The layout of the castle was maze-like and often changed at will. I finally got the halls to look like they were spiraling inwardly on my mental floor map, though I was now quite sure that the inside was larger than the outside. I wasn't sure how I felt about that.

On the second day, the knocking began. At first, I thought it was part of the dream but it threatened to break the castle down stone by stone.

My eyes shot open and I rushed to the back door of my loft. "Edward, you open this damn door! I can hear you in there!" my visitor called. "Don't make me break the door down because I will."

I groaned and unlocked the door. My adopted sister stood before me in three-inch shiny black heels, a ruby red pencil skirt, and a white flowy blouse tucked in. Her golden eyes were hidden behind large sunglasses and a purse dangled off her arm.

"Hello Rosalie," I said with no emotion in my voice, the first words I said aloud since I put Bella to bed.

"Do you know that Mom and Dad have been worried sick?"

She scowled and pushed past me. A long curtain of blonde curls covered my face as she took off her glasses, snapping her head dramatically.

"Long flight?" I asked, just as monotone. I locked the door back up, trying to hide from the light.

She tossed her bag on my couch and plopped down, putting her ridiculous heels up on my coffee table. "Murderous, yes. I was the closest so they sent me when you stopped checking in. How'd you do it anyway?"

"Do what? I haven't been able to contact Carlisle since—" I stopped myself. I almost didn't want to share Bella.

"Yea, Alice told us you changed this girl," she softly said, putting her feet down and leaning in. "What was it like?"

I'd never seen Rosalie be anything but self-absorbed and bossy so for her to ask me that question in such a caring manner was unnerving. "It was horrible," I answered honestly. "I went to this spot like Alice told me, how she always tells me, and I saw her getting hurt. She would have died. I made the choice to spare her."

Rosalie whistled. "Wow. Our little Eddie's all grown up." There was the bitch I loved! She knew I hated that nickname but, being Rosalie, she was the only one allowed to call me it. "The first one of Carlisle's misfits to go Dark Side."

"No, Jasper's turned people before."

She scoffed. "They had to be killed afterwards like rabid dogs, thank you very much. Doesn't count."

Rosalie was the most recent of us to be turned. She still hadn't quite accepted the life, or the secrecy the species demanded. She understood the implications of my actions but she was just a kid by comparison. She thought of it as a step on the evolutionary scale and an inevitable result of our condition. The rest of us thought of it as a shameful slip of our self-control.

She looked around the loft. "Where is she then?" she asked, her eyes too eager for comfort.

"At school, I'd imagine," I answered. I went to the couch across from her and slid across it face down.

"What the fuck do you mean at school?" she screeched. "And why do you look tired? We don't get tired, right?"

"I didn't have enough time to come up with an excuse for her absence while she completed her transformation so I had to send her back with a little memory wipe. And no, we don't get tired."

"Well you look like shit, but isn't it dangerous to send her out there with all that juicy, adolescent prey? Do I have to remind you of Jazz's little accidents?"

I mumbled into my cushion, "She's still got a bit before she starts craving it bad enough. In the meantime, I'm keeping her in check. Sorta."

"What?"

"I think it's why Carlisle can't hear me. She's in my head. Not in the way Carlisle's in our heads. I can see her in there. I can feel her wherever she is and I can talk to her like I'm standing in front of her."

"We do that with Carlisle."

I jumped up into a sitting position, my eyes alight with newfound energy. "No, I mean I take her to this place in our heads. A castle. I can touch her there, conjure up anything I want. It's…"

"Dude, you get your own _Matrix_ world when you turn someone? Totally not fair."

I chuckled. There was just no helping Rosalie. She was as evil as they came but she was family and she kept her fang jobs to herself. She wasn't like me. She didn't live off animals. She lived off men, the stupider the better. She slept with them, fed off them, and sent them off with curious bite marks and low hemoglobin levels but that was all. She'd never turned them. She'd never done that extra step, the shedding of her own blood. Carlisle wasn't too happy about her sex addiction either but Esme kept reminding him that fatherly love was unconditional. Reminders usually involved an extra year on Isle Esme while Jasper cleaned up his mess, making her the best mother I ever had, or remembered.

I wondered how many years she'd have to distract Carlisle this time to make him forget my complete destruction of our bond. There was nothing of Carlisle left in my head except lifeless memories.

"Here," said Rose, interrupting my wandering thoughts with the thud of plastic on my coffee table.

"What's this?"

She would have laughed if she weren't so embarrassed of me. "It's a mobile phone, you hermit! Alice is going to call us when they land. Now get fucking dressed. We're going out tonight."

"Why? What? What do you mean?"

She stood askew with her fists at her sides. I knew this look. I was terrified of this look. This look landed me on a WANTED poster in Texas fifty years ago after trying to explain to a deputy how a man could fall and stab himself on a broken fork. Repeatedly. With his groin.

"Rose, no," I said as firmly as possible. I would have stomped my foot and crossed my arms defiantly if I thought it'd do anything. After a few moments of tense staring, I sighed. "Fine. What should I wear?"

She looked me up and down and answered, "Anything that doesn't make you look like you're going to Calvin Klein's funeral." She snorted on her way to my liquor cabinet and continued, "Never mind. I'm sure you haven't bought anything in over a decade. Just get on some jeans and a half-decent sweater. I'm _told_ it's cold out."

I dragged myself to my closet. Damn her. She was right, as always.

"The blue one!" she shouted from the living room. I put on the sweater with a white t-shirt under and my favorite navy jeans. Dark colors were sort of my signature so I got why Rose wanted me in something blue and bright, even if it made me feel ridiculous.

Though the members of my family knew me the only way centenarians could know each other, Rosalie and I shared a very special bond. Loneliness. She dealt with it with anonymous sex at sports bars and NASCAR events. I hid away under a library where God couldn't find me. It didn't matter. It was still loneliness.

She was supposed to be my mate. It was a foolish move on Carlisle's part – I preferred brunettes – but he at least got me a good sister out of the whole fiasco. He got me someone who understood why I hid away, who knew the dangers of falling in love and who truly hated herself and her condition even more than I ever could.

I only wish I could help her the way she helped me but I could never fulfill her wishes. I wanted company and conversation. She wanted a child. She didn't care if it came with a companion.

I stepped out into the living room and waited for her judgments. She didn't have any. She looked around my room and held her chest. I shot her a look asking her to say something.

"Her smell's still here," she whispered, deeply engrossed in trying to find the source. "It's been days, I'm sure, but it lingers."

I shrugged. "She fell into the lake outside. I guess her scent dried into the cushion."

She was suddenly deathly serious, a warning sign. Her eyes snapped to mine beneath a furrowed brow. "You didn't give her a choice, did you?" I shook my head in shame. "Like father, like son."

"Rosie, you can't still hold it against—"

She shoved my leather jacket into my chest and sauntered silently towards the back door. I hated how judgmental her heels sounded on my floors. She stopped at the door, waiting for me to open it for her.

"Where are we going?" I was genuinely terrified to ask.

"I want to meet this Bella girl. Actually, I want _you_ to meet her."

"I've met her, Rose. In fact, we've already shared bodily fluids. It doesn't get more personal."

She grimaced. "No, idiot. You're going to start the way semi-normal people start," she said, getting cheerier by the second. I shrugged, unsure of what that was. I never bothered learning mating rituals the first time around. She laughed and, now halfway across the lawn of the university library, shouted back at me, "You're going to buy her a drink!"

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_So the Cullens are on their way! Yay! Funny, funny moments are ahead as Edward tries to keep them from meddling with his non-relationship with Bella and more trips to the castle abound. _

**Reviews are better than trips to Isle Esme. **


	4. Roses and Thorns

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**CHAPTER FOUR  
**Roses and Thorns

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**BELLA**

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I taped the drawing up on my wall and sat on my bed, hugging my knees to my chest. I stared at the curves of Edward's face and the wrinkles around his mouth, the smirk that Emmett remembered so well. I felt some ownership over that smirk. It seemed so familiar, like looking at a picture of a life-long friend instead of a mysterious stranger.

I hated being in the dorm room because of all the noise. I found myself snatching the drawing and storming through the campus, walking aimlessly. Even though I didn't lift my eyes off the slowly-wrinkling paper, I never tripped or missed a step. It was getting eerie and I began to miss my old self. All those faults were part of me and, though I was evolving into something greater, I felt like I'd been possessed by a goddess undeserving of my real self.

I so desperately wanted to see my Edward again. I didn't know why but I felt like he could make me feel complete again, appreciate me as I once was _and_ for what I was becoming, because he was like me. I was already seeing Edward as my ideal man and, though I knew he could only disappoint me in reality, I wanted to take the chance should he really be the ideal.

If only I could find him.

I realized I had stopped walking right in front of the bridge by the library. I went to gasp or hold my breath but it no longer had the same effect. My body did not take in the oxygen. It didn't make me feel better. I looked down at my feet but I was stuck. I cursed to myself and forced that first step forward. It felt like I'd hit hot coals, not wood.

I swallowed hard and walked on with shut eyes. Someone passing by touched my arm gently and asked, "Are you okay, Bella?"

I snapped up and pulled away, suddenly terrified. I saw it was a girl from my history class, one with kind eyes. I'd spoken with her before. I quickly searched my memory for her name. Angela.

"Hey!" I squeaked. "Hi, Angela. I'm fine."

"You sure? You look so pale and you were gripping the side of the bridge like you were afraid you were going to fall or something."

I laughed weakly. "Was I? Sorry if I scared you. I haven't slept in a while so I'm a little antsy."

She took my arm a bit more forcefully and helped me across the bridge. She didn't even let me refuse her help. I took an instant liking to her, not that I'd noticed her much before.

"Thanks," I told her and took my arm back.

"No problem!" she answered, so cheerfully that it gave me a toothache. "See you tomorrow in class!"

She left me speechless. I imagined she was one of those genuinely good people who never missed Sunday mass, called her parents every day, and helped old ladies cross the street. Or neurotic classmates cross pathetically short bridges. Whatever.

"See ya!" I shouted after her, stunned, and we split paths.

I wandered once again through campus, eventually heading back to the dorm. I kept hearing this voice inside my head, almost like an angrier version of Edward. He was muffled, more so than usual, and his thoughts came to me like incoherent sentences. Just words and thoughts.

Roses and thorns and sisters from Hell. It kept replaying over and over. A few curse words joined in and I found myself smirking on the way up to my dorm. I had no idea how much time had passed. I felt something woosh by me and gasped, taking in that familiar smell. I looked around but I was more or less alone. No one familiar.

I hurried to my dorm but found Emmett cornered against a wall, laughing with an elegant blonde who was two jokes away from sticking her hands down his pants and claiming ownership. I scoffed and tried to scurry past them but they were parked right in front of my door.

"Bella!" Emmett shouted at my back. I had no idea he could see past the blonde's oddly familiar golden eyes.

"Hey you," I said, spinning in my heel to reluctantly face them.

The blonde looked me up and down, studying me. I didn't know whether she was eying me as competition or lunch. I raised an eyebrow back at Emmett as though saying, "Really? This is your type? You couldn't have picked someone less Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue?"

He smirked and said, "Have you met Rosalie?"

I shook my head but it quickly hit me. Roses and thorns and sisters from Hell.

"Are you—You're Edward's sister?" I whispered, trying to find something familiar about her face.

_Great. Look like a total spaz in front of your mystery guy's sister. Nice one, Bella. _

A voice inside me laughed. It wasn't my voice but it felt close as though it – or he – were looking upon me, over my shoulder. He was amused. The angry muffle died!

"You've heard of me?" Rosalie asked.

I tried searching my memory and, though I had never seen this woman before, I felt like I knew her. And should be terrified of her.

"He calls you the thorn at his side," I whispered again, croaking out like a frog covered in salt.

Emmett snickered behind her. She put out her hand between us, proud of her title, but I just stared at it. The murmur in my head urged me to take it. I put it out there and I shook. I almost expected lightning to strike us down or the Devil to rise out of the ground and skewer me for even appearing in her presence but nothing. Just cold meets cold.

She was actually colder than I was, of course. She'd been dead longer and bits of my humanity still hung on.

"Wow. You and Edward talked about your families? What, are you gonna be moving in together next week? Get married next month?" joked Emmett.

Rosalie, the voice in my head, and I all chuckled nervously. "No, we just—Uhm, no—I…" I stuttered. I cleared my throat to buy myself some time to think and continued lamely, "Please don't tell him you saw me?"

Emmett and Rosalie both looked shocked. "What?" I didn't know who said it. There were too many voices in my head.

"I just—Uhm—"

Emmett, who usually laughed at my occasional incoherent nervous babbling, seemed stunned. Here was my chance into Edward's secret world and I was telling them no. I was saying no? I laughed at myself and walked into my dorm, quite away of how insane I looked.

I was about to shut the door when I saw the Post-it on the back of my black desk chair, in the one place where I would surely look the instant I walked through. I practically ran to it, snatched it, and read it over four times within a second.

_Say yes. –E._

I felt Em and Rose's eyes on my back. "Hey Bell?" Emmett shouted cautiously from the hall. "Rose was just inviting us to the bar across campus. You up? I could use a wingman here."

I whirled around, holding the note to my chest.

"Yes?" I answered, terrified.

"YES!" shouted Emmett, who seemed desperate to get into Rose's pants. I just smirked at him and went to shut my door.

"Meet you there!" I called and heard what must have been Emmett jumping up and down behind Rosalie like a kid scoring his first touchdown. I heard sickeningly happy, flirty giggles and went straight to my closet.

What the fuck do you wear to get drunk with your mystery man's hellish sister? And let's not underestimate the intensity of my resolve to get drunk.

-----

**EDWARD**

-----

Rosalie didn't have to pull me across the campus to Bella's dorm. She knew I would follow out of logic. I couldn't pull her back because she was stronger. I hadn't fed on a human in a decade so I was weak from animal blood. And, if I just let her go, I'd be picking up pieces of Bella all over the country for the next three years.

Rosie didn't see people as I did. She had her family which she protected with her life, her occasional boy toys who she easily discarded and her potential meals. Period. Bella was now none of the above. This was dangerous. This made her competition, or so I thought.

"Rose, do you even know where you're going?" I called after her, my hands buried deep in my pockets as we kept our steady human pace, trying to blend in across the crowded campus.

"I'm following her scent," she answered. I could tell this was true by the way Rose focused on Bella's apartment building. It was all over her thoughts, the hunter instinct. It was difficult reading the mind of other vampires. Rose had learned since her change to keep her mind a mess of thoughts with an underlying current of consciousness. She lived for lust, while I lived for… Envy? No, for nothing. Not until Bella. Now, she was everything.

Soon, as the prospect of seeing and feeling her again came closer and closer, I no longer had to follow Rosalie. I was walking there of my own accord. I was a hundred-year-old vampire. I could ask a girl out for a platonic drink. There was a lot to talk about and I couldn't wait for her to come back and remember. My time was almost up. She was going to have to feed soon. Very soon. And I just had to be there.

I pointed up to Bella's dorm room. "Up there?" asked Rose.

"Yup."

She shot me a look. "Yup? Since when do you say yup? _Who are you?_" she hissed.

I rolled my eyes and started for the door. I remembered you had to slide the student key card in but a large group was coming down the path so we lingered and waited for them to arrive to open the door. I didn't much care to break a window and hop a few floors. It'd have been easy but it'd have also been rude and first impressions were important now.

I tried to listen upstairs as we waited for the group. I didn't hear Bella, didn't smell her. She wasn't home, and the disappointment was unnerving on so many levels.

The group of kids was kind enough to let us in. We started for her floor but I caught a familiar scent and stopped Rose. I nodded towards the guy walking down the hall, a Post-it pad and pen in hand, humming along.

"Wow," said Rose, licking her lips. Her eyes shot back at me against the wall. "Who's 'Muscles' and why don't you want him to see us?"

"That's Bella's friend Emmett."

"Just a friend?"

"I don't want to read his thoughts and it seemed platonic so yea, her friend."

Rosalie shook her head. "You're head over heels for this girl and you can't even tell me if that's her best friend or not? For one, you must never be allowed to pick my dates."

I saw her start that familiar sway of her hips. It was the internationally recognized sashay of the upper-class whore. I tried to stop her but I was close enough if it got back. While she pretended to bump into him and spill the contents of her purse – careful to point out her collection of condoms like a pro – I sped past them to Bella's room, which was always unlocked.

I closed the door and, as far as I knew, Emmett was none the wiser. "I'm sorry about that!" I heard Rosalie drawl on. "I didn't get your name."

Emmett would have been too mesmerized by now to remember his name but, well, he tried. "E-E-Emmett."

Rosalie must have smiled because Emmett's heartbeat sped up fast enough to run a small car.

"Emmett? Would you _Bella's_ friend Emmett?"

I chuckled. She was a genius. "Yea, you lookin' for Bella?"

"No no. I'm here visiting my brother. Maybe you've heard of him? His name's Edward Cullen. I'm Rosalie."

And that's all we needed to penetrate her life. They flirted on and on and Rose suggested this stupid bar across the street. I just sat on Bella's bed and tuned them out. I was in her room again. Her scent was everywhere. She'd been here not long ago. The bed looked like it hadn't been slept in in days and her papers and books were now organized to an inch of their death.

I noticed she kept two piles of books. One was on her desk, presumably her to-read pile, and the other on the floor by her bookcase, her already-read pile. The little details like that made me smile. It felt like I was getting to know her without getting to know her. The creepy fact that I was technically stalking her seemed severely less creepy when one's sister agrees to help in said stalking. I was in no hurry.

I read through her Post-its. They were private, after all. Most were from Emmett, reminding her to eat and sleep and threatening to send her back home if she didn't man up and cheer up. Others caught my eye. _Have you heard from him yet? Has he called?_

I felt guilty as hell but I just sat on her bed and memorized every detail I could for her room back at the castle. In that little world, I could make up for my distance and emotional inadequacies. I could hug her and talk to her all I wanted. I could pretend to know what she was going to say and still be surprised every time she said something unpredictable.

Then, I smelled her coming closer. I raced to her window and saw her coming towards the building. I started to panic. The front door was blocked. I'd have to wait for her to come inside before jumping out the window and, even then, I'd have to be careful not to be seen by any humans in the area. I whispered the situation, sure that Rosalie would hear from the doorway, even over her own laughter. She and Emmett seemed to hit it off like Yogi the Bear and picnic baskets but I kept my comments to myself that night. I had no way of knowing it was genuine.

Bella came up and, unable to avoid a group of smoking teenagers under the window and my own inability to fly, I had to run right past her at the fastest speeds I could muster. Even Rosalie didn't know where I went. I'd left the window open and listened from below. I even thought to scare the teenagers off or bum a cigarette, whatever kept me close and within earshot.

Then she spoke, stuttered. I began to whisper from below and it was almost as though she could hear me but not hear me. I muttered about Rosalie being the thorn in my side and she heard me. She heard me as though I'd muttered it in her ear. Our connection was staggering, more so each day that passed and every moment I was allowed in her presence.

When she accepted the chance to go for a drink, I felt like my heart might start to beat again and felt even more horribly disappointed when it didn't. It would take me years to stop seeing Bella as the last connection to my humanity.

-----

**BELLA**

-----

I put on the first clean pair of jeans I saw and a white button-down shirt that I usually wore under blazers or jackets during meets with the Honors College. I looked… well, like my mother _should_ look but never did. I left my hair loose and didn't bother with perfume. It still made me sick to my stomach.

I didn't grab a bag, just slid my IDs and cards into my back pocket and ran for it. Rosalie and Emmett were waiting by the door. "Ready?" asked Em. I just narrowed my eyes at him in contempt. He ignored me and kept on flirting with Rose. "So where you guys from?"

I chuckled and lingered behind on the path across the street, hoping to grab some second-hand information from the sister from Hell. Though I could sense that she had the potential for hellish actions, like every leggy blonde in 3-inch heels, she seemed civil enough for now. I wondered briefly if Edward had sent her but he had no reason to. In my head, he didn't even care about me. In my head, he hadn't saved my life and I wasn't a vampire and, somewhere out there, a rainbow was shooting out of someone's ass.

"Well, I'm originally from New York. Edward's from Chicago, but we travel around a lot. This is the first time he's stayed in a place longer than ten years."

I snapped to attention, lifting my eyes off the grass. "I thought you were his sister."

"We're adopted. Long time ago. There's three of us, plus Jasper who's married to our other sister, Alice. He's kind of like a brother anyway."

I suddenly saw a man with tired, bloodshot eyes and silky blonde hair in the back of my mind. He had his arms around a tiny woman with spiky, black hair. My chest felt warm with the aura of family. Close family.

"That's cool," commented Emmett. I just went back to staring at the ground, even when we took the first seats we saw at the bar. Rosalie went on about the mansion she'd just come from and that it was her third stop with "friends" in the last three years, that she wasn't looking for anything long-term, as she had plans to move on yet again to stay in some castle in Spain. I didn't see why she felt she had to whisper that lovingly into Emmett's ear. It was kind of disgusting and I tried to avoid any sight of tongue to ear by taking the longest drink of beer of my life.

Beer had taste but I didn't want it. I forced myself to drink. I wanted to forget, especially the fact that I hadn't had anything to drink in so long that I couldn't remember the texture of water anymore. I didn't want to be responsible for all the stupid things I would do if Edward would in fact join us, even if Rosalie hadn't even mentioned the possibility of his appearance. It was just assumed, like it was assumed that it would rain tomorrow. It might not but it was still safe to assume and you always kept an umbrella in your bag just in case.

I didn't need an umbrella. I needed beer, but he had taken that away from me too. I was on sixth glass and I felt full, an ocean rambling about in my intestines, but I was still holding out for the tiny buzz I might possibly, one day, enjoy.

Nothing. Fucking hell.

I'd also apparently drunk them in a manner in minutes because Emmett hadn't even noticed. He saw all the empty glasses after resurfacing from the icy blue depths of Rosalie's eyes and was about to freak out until his private vixen slid her hand between his thighs. I gulped down my disgust at their public affection but was quickly rescued by the hand of a classmate named Mike. He wasn't Edward but he was a distraction.

I faked a smile and just nodded at whatever he was stuttering. He dragged me off to the middle of the bar where a few couples were dancing to the honky tonk or whatever crap people grinded to in sports bars these days. It sounded part country but I didn't care. The guy introduced himself as Mike and I smiled but didn't say my name. He took hold of my waist and my hand and I let him because it was a distraction until it started raining. His touch was so light that I didn't even notice him as I finally looked around the room.

"Your name's Bella, right?" he shouted over the loud music and chatter. "I have you in Professor Medina's!"

I nodded, though I didn't know if that was true. I'd never noticed him. He was hardly my type, if I had a type or any interest in any man besides Edward. _Where the fuck is he?_

The song ended and another began. I went to say goodbye to Mike, even thank him for releasing me from Emmett's hormone prison, but I was suddenly bombarded by the pulsing of arteries beneath the skin of his neck. I gulped but my mouth kept watering. I let out the tiniest growl, unnoticeable to human ears. All the liquid in my stomach was the final reminder that I wasn't normal.

I wanted to vomit. I wanted to drink. It was sickening. The image of the castle flashed before me and the pain in my stomach got stronger. My body wanted to remind me what I had forgotten, even for a moment. That I was not human and neither was this boy pressed against me on the dance floor. He was just prey.

I went to double over. Rosalie was at my side instantly. I didn't see her feet move but she was there, gripping my elbow so tightly that I thought it'd snap. Her eyes were ominous, trying to keep my attention on her. She leaned in and whispered, "Control yourself or I _will_ kill you."

I understood. The hunger demanded I kill Mike. So I let her drag me away, past Emmett, towards the door. She pushed me up against the brick wall outside the pub and dug her nails into my ribs until I felt like she was going to pull them apart and rip out my intestines. I was scared for the first time. Her eyes became more obvious, the danger behind them. I went to scream but it just came out as a growl.

That's when Edward's hand came up behind Rosalie, wrapping around her neck and pulling her back off me with an animalistic hiss. I gasped softly at the first real sight of my phantom and quickly slid down the wall, truly unconscious for the first time since I died.

-----

_Definitely continuing the story. It's getting very complicated in my head, so expect twists and angst and vampy goodness. Also expect more Emmett hilarity and Alice and Jazz arrive next. Thanks for reading so far!_ **REVIEW?**


	5. All These Things I'd Done

-----

**CHAPTER FIVE**

All These Things I've Done

-----  
**EDWARD  
**-----

I had never in my pathetically long life ever seen a vampire faint. Then again, nobody had ever called Bella normal and never would again. She was in her final moments of humanity and, as such, still in the thralls of human nature. She did not _need_ to faint. She was not hurt, no matter how forceful Rosalie had been. She was simply scared. And, when the mind tells one to do something, it doesn't matter that the body may no longer be capable. Sometimes, one's body does it without consent.

It was how I came to love Bella. Without consent, as naturally as breathing had once been.

I growled at Rosalie and told her, "Go tell Emmett that Bella tripped or got drunk and has to be taken home. Whatever."

She reluctantly obliged. Rosalie, though dangerously out of tune with her humanity, was still a young vampire by comparison. She couldn't control herself the way someone as old as me could. I knew she would eventually regret her overreaction but it was written all over her mind. Bella was going to break our cover – reveal herself – and even a newborn vampire knew that was the ultimate sin.

If Bella had been anyone else, if Rosalie had so much as an inkling that she was going to go through with it, she had full authority to kill her. I was the one breaking the rules here, with every second I didn't tell Bella what she was.

I lifted her up into my arms, cradling her head to my chest. She breathed in my scent, recognizing me instantly. Her eyes shot open before I had the chance to carry her back to her dorm.

She didn't notice when I rushed us to the nearest alley where we could be alone. Rosalie would find us soon enough.

"Hey," I whispered, smiling slightly. My brow was furrowed but my touch was gentle. Again, I waited for my heart to beat. It never would.

"Hey," she whispered back. She reached up to caress my cheek with the back of her fingers and I wanted to curl into her touch like a cat but didn't. She didn't know me. I didn't know her. It didn't matter that we'd walked each other's minds.

"You fainted," I practically squeaked. I'd stopped breathing, should her skin call to me.

"It's been known to happen."

I smiled brighter, revealing teeth. "I'm sorry about Rosalie," I added quickly. She didn't seem to know what I was talking about.

"I was—I was dancing with Mike."

I didn't know who this Mike was but I wanted to put him and Rosalie in a room and watch the blood drip down the walls. Bella caused some very violent reactions in me but this was just scary. I was never jealous before, not of any past lover's other relations.

"She's a little territorial," I joked. She was actually a serial killer but it was best not to be… truthful right now. It was time to be flirty, to forget the world existed and focus on the feel of her skin against mine again and the lightning running rampant through my veins. It was time to lie, yet again. "She was misinformed, you see. She thought I had some claim on you."

"You do," she answered honestly. "Edward."

My name on her lips wasn't nearly the same as the feel of her but the milestone was there. The kindness was in her voice, in her gestures. I was getting to know her again. The long way. The best way.

"Why aren't we in the castle? I remember a little bit. I remember a castle," she said, covering her eyes with her hand and rubbing. This too was an instinctual gesture. She was still in that half-awake, half-asleep state. She would wake entirely soon and I'd have to start over, introduce myself to her second self, the human self now lost.

"The castle's in your dreams, Bella. It's real but—it's not."

"Are _you_ real?" she asked, seemingly afraid. I hadn't learned to read her expressions well and, since her mind was now closed off to me, I felt a great curiosity. I wanted to study her, spend more time just staring at her face.

I smiled tenderly. "Yes, I'm real. And I'm here whenever you need me. Understood?" I figured if I reminded her while she was awake, she would remember forever. She might even find the space in her clouded mind to remember what we could be if she just closed her eyes again.

I set her down in the middle of the alley but she took a step forward into my chest, her palms flat over the space where my heartbeat would once have fluttered at her touch. I considered closing the space between us. Instead, I took a step back towards the wall. She took another step forward and I once again retreated, again and again, quicker and quicker until I was pressed against the wall.

She kept looking up into my eyes. First, her face seemed to show joy and wonder and the same curiosity I felt every second I was with her. Then, it all faded and her brows knit together in confusion.

"What are you thinking?" I begged, reaching up to hold her wrists in place, trying to bring her back to the reality with my icy touch. To anyone else, it might have looked intimate. I didn't know what it was or whether Bella thought it so. I could taste her spirit when she'd walked the castle. In reality, she was as much of an enigma as every other person who walked this earth – separate from me, an individual who could easily walk away and never think of me again, capable of moving on when I never could.

"That you're going to disappear," she admitted softly after a moment. Her voice got increasingly angry as she said, "I'm waiting for you to go. You're my ghost. You come and you go and you leave me with words! Just words! Why do you care? Why do you keep coming back?"

This anger was human. It was the Bella beneath the dream and I loved every word of it, no matter how much it hurt _me_ to have hurt _her_. It was just another taste of that beautiful spirit.

"Your ghost?" I echoed softly. I played coy. It was the only way I could keep her close, keep her human. "I'm sorry. I'm not sure I know what you mean. My name's Edward Cullen. I'm a student here. We met at a party a little while ago. Don't you remember? You were pretty out of it."

She gulped. Her eyes went wild as she searched her memory. She pulled away from me and I let go of her wrists. And so, the charade began.

-----  
**BELLA  
**-----

I knew I couldn't be going crazy. This guy wasn't human, right? I sure as hell wasn't. What if I was just projecting the fact that I was turning into a freak onto this guy? I couldn't trust my memories but could I trust Edward? Why did my heart scream YES, YOU MORON?

"Sorry I fainted."

I sounded annoyed, dismissive. I knew that if I turned around and ignored him, blamed him for all my confusion, he would follow. I felt like, now that he stood before me in full corporeal glory, I knew his every move before he did it.

Just as I predicted, he reached out and held my wrist. "You're drunk," he warned.

I snorted and pulled away gently. He didn't fight me as though afraid he'd break me but I could tell he wanted to. He didn't want me to just leave as though we didn't have this silent history. "Well, you're rude. I think we're even."

The bastard looked amused. "I dropped you off at home when I could have easily taken advantage of you. I don't think that makes me rude. I'm pretty sure that makes me downright gentlemanly."

It was turning into a dance. Everything we said made our lips twitch on the fringe of a smile and a scowl. This was flirting, right? I had no idea what I was doing but I liked it. It was easy with him, only him.

"You gay?" I asked, perfectly serious. It wasn't a serious question though. I could see the way he looked me up and down, licking his lips. I felt dirty in his eyes. Dirty images ran through me and I breathed in deeply, getting a strong whiff of eau de alley, which just made me nauseous.

"No," he answered honestly, his eyes locked on mine. "Are you always this confrontational?"

I smirked then. "Yes."

"Good," he said just as Rosalie and Emmett rounded the corner.

"Hey you guys!" shouted Rosalie, her voice strained. She shot daggers at me. I remembered her eyes when I fainted. Was she really going to bitch me out for dancing with another guy? Edward was right. He didn't have any claim on me. Maybe she genuinely didn't know. No other scenarios shot at me right away. My mind was trying so hard to focus on Edward but I kept getting flashes of this castle. Of Edward in a tux as if it were a memory of a dream and a singular memory at the same time.

I thought I was going fucking nuts.

"Bella, you okay?" asked Emmett, switching into big brother mode. I didn't look at him. Edward and I were still locked in a stare-down framed in smirks.

"Fine," I answered feebly.

He didn't say a thing and he'd moved out of my periphery vision with Rosalie so I didn't say anything either. It was just universally understood that wherever we were taking Emmett – who did seem more than affected by his drinks and Rose's presence -- we were going in pairs.

Edward just automatically belonged to me.

We were silent on the way home, lingering behind and trying to ignore the fact that Emmett was two seconds away from humping Rosalie's leg like a rampant Chihuahua. We got to the front door. Emmett and Rosalie laughed their way upstairs but Edward and I lingered at the glass doors. I stepped through and waited for him on the other side but he just looked at me with gentle eyes.

"This is where you disappear, isn't it?" I whispered, looking down at my tennis shoes.

He leaned in and kissed me on the cheek. It seemed purposely slow. "If you hear screams from upstairs, make sure Rosie hasn't killed your friend." I thought it was a joke, though his eyes didn't leave me or show any trace of humor. He had two expressions: snarky and gloomy.

"Hey, it's a good way to die," I mumbled and walked away.

"I'll see you in your dreams, Bella," he whispered back but I heard it perfectly and it made my hands tremble with anticipation.

There was no regret. Something told me I'd be seeing him again. Soon. And for just a moment, I felt human again. I felt like going to sleep, that something was waiting for me on the other side of that dream.

When I got upstairs, I opened my window and watched him walk away, his fists buried deep in his pockets. I pretended to undo my bed as though getting ready to sleep, changing before the wide-open window. I secretly hoped he was watching though was infinitely glad he couldn't have been.

I sat in bed and looked out the window for some time. The view was full of passersby but I didn't recognize a single head of bronze hair among them. Emmett and Rosalie were going at it since the moment they stepped through Emmett's dorm room. I heard them mumbling something about a sock on the door for his roommate and then just the loudest screams I'd heard in my life. If Emmett weren't begging for more, I'd have thought she really was trying to kill him. I could also hear the terrified and giggly commentary on the entire third floor, all thinking exactly the same thing.

I decided that I could learn to get away from all the sounds. I rested back and did as Edward said. I looked for him in the dreams I knew I couldn't possibly be having.

I forced myself to close my eyes. It was almost an impossible feat. It was cold inside my mind, dark and scary like that alley would have been without Edward. There wasn't even a hint of humanity. Memories fluttered through the darkness like someone flipping through a picture book. I realized then it was Edward. I wasn't asleep. I wasn't at the castle.

But I could see him. I would remember this time.

"Edward!" I called aloud though my lips did not move. I was running after him, though I knew I was still in bed. I saw the hedges of the grounds around the castle in the distance. I was getting warmer the faster I ran. Soon, I wasn't running. My bare feet were moving so quickly that I felt like I was flying, the slender blades of grass tickling my soles beneath me.

I arrived at the castle, giggling. I was out of breath purely out of instinct. I bent forward and leaned onto my knees. The laugh died as soon as I saw I was alone. I called his name again, so loudly that it echoed inside my head.

The front doors were pushed open. I saw Edward standing in the doorway and laughed. "I knew it!" I shouted. "I remember now! I remember you! There was no party… I was dying… Oh God, I'm a vampire, aren't I? So are you."

He flew to my side and looked me up and down in that awe I had noticed that night in the alley, disguising it as a nod. He gently led me to the front doors in case I needed to sit down or lean against something less fleshy. I had never stepped through before but it didn't feel like a milestone of any sort, though I knew it was to Edward. He seemed anxious, smiling brightly like a child showing his room for the first time.

"I did a little decorating," he said calmly, walking me through the maze. He rested a timid hand on the small of my back. I noticed then that I was once again in a dress. I wondered if he controlled it the way he obviously controlled the interior of the castle or the state of his hair. It was tidier in his dream. I was probably prettier. I certainly felt it. We could be anyone here but he still chose to be himself, a slightly better version of himself.

I got tired of walking and staring at the grandeur of the interior. "Where are we going?"

"I made you a room."

I stopped in my tracks, eyes wide. "What do you mean?"

"Look, I don't know much about humans but I know you like to have your spaces to call your own. It's one of those things we keep. It gets intense when you're a vampire. You'll want to have complete and utter privacy. You're eventually going to have to pretend to sleep to keep your secret so, since we're probably going to get stuck together in here, I wanted you to have a corner of our world that's just your own," he explained, opening the two big white doors nearest to us.

I expected to see a large canopy bed with lacey curtains and plush white carpet but there were only stacks on walls. Endless stacks, four floors high and completely filled. In the back, there was a large black couch that rounded a corner. Floor lamps and reading lamps abounded.

"It's a library?" I whispered to no one in particular. "You _made_ me a library?"

He scratched the back of his head and pursed his lips, trying to find the words to explain. "They're not your normal books. It's—It's everything I've ever read. It's everything I've written. Every memory I have is in these books, everything I've done."

"You've read this many books?"

"I've lived that many years. My life's memories are recorded here. You're the only person I've ever… turned. I'm indebted to you, Bella. I have stolen your life. It seems only fair that you get to read mine from beginning to end. I promise you'll have the time, though probably not the interest."

I just laughed. I didn't believe him. He could see it on my face and went to a random shelf, pulling out a random book without looking. He opened it up and began to read aloud.

_I have arrived back in Chicago. It is 1978 and I am the last of my human family. I know that now. The old house is gone, built over. The diner my parents would take me to every Sunday after church has become a hotel, and, though my high school remains, it is nothing as it once was. It is larger. It is grander. The world has moved on and still, I stay the same. I have never missed Carlisle and Esme and my new family more. I wish I could go back to them but, even though I know my last link to humanity is gone, I am still not like them. I will not give in to my bloodlust and I will never be like them. I will go back one last time and then, I will truly be as alone as I feel. Maybe then, I won't feel like I'm living a lie anymore. _

He shut it and set it down on a nearby table. He picked another out at random and tossed it at me. For once in my life, it didn't hit me in the face or foot or stomach. It just landed gracefully in my hands. I gasped. He gestured for me to open it but I hesitated.

"What if I find something here I don't want to know?" I asked.

"You already know the evils I've done, Bella. You are in my head, in my heart. All the time. I can't hide it from you now. I can't risk losing you again over a lie," he whispered, coming closer. He ran his hand up my arm, as soothing as a lifelong friend.

"What about _my_ evils?" I replied. "Is there a library of everything I've read? All these things _I've_ done?"

He shook his head with a smirk. "Your life is shorter," he said, obviously amused. "If I want to know something, I'll ask."

I snorted and started walking the stands. I could feel his eyes on me, watching me move in this ridiculous white gown worthy of an inauguration dinner or award ceremony. He let me wander around the castle. He lingered around, waiting for me to talk to him again. Time didn't even seem to matter. We had eternity and we knew it now.

When I'd go from room to room, exploring with fresh eyes and gentle touches, I'd look back at him over my shoulder and nod for him to follow me. Eventually, he got closer and closer and I'd ask him about something, why he put it in our sanctuary.

He found it in this and this place, this and this time ago. I soon realized that the whole castle was a museum to his memories. The castle was beautiful because _he_ was beautiful. A beautiful soul trapped forever. And for once, I felt like I could help, like my existence meant something to this person.

He hadn't been the only lonely one, which he knew just by looking at me. Anyone knew. Even Alice, who I had never met, in that vision that led Edward to the perfect spot.

"I'm going to have to wake up soon, aren't I?" I whispered sadly into the pages of a book. I could feel the sunlight on my skin outside. He'd taken his own book and lingered on the other side of the large couch, our legs curled up under us. He looked up to me as though trying to catch one last glance before I disappeared. "I can feel the light."

"I don't know," he answered. "There's no light where I am."

He closed his book and hurried to kneel down before me. He took my hand my lap, his eyes begging me what I already knew.

_Come back to me. Please, come back to me soon._

I nodded and smiled and then, I woke up in my room like it had never happened. I was suddenly bombarded by phantom feelings. I thought I still felt his hand on mine though I knew we hadn't touched since that alley. I thought I could feel a tear tracing my cheek, but that couldn't have been possible either.

Still, I remembered. And come night, I would have returned, if the blood hadn't found me first.

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_No reviews? Does no one like vampires anymore? Didn't you guys read Twilight at all or is this story that bad? Oh god. Don't answer that. Lol._

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	6. Relativity

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**CHAPTER SIX**

Relativity

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**EDWARD  
**-----

I opened my eyes and found two golden orbs staring back at me, framed in short black hair. I gasped and fell off my couch. I was never this graceless before Bella. She was influencing me in ways neither of us realized. After quickly recovering from the tiny fall, I was barely on my feet before wrapping my arms around my littlest sister.

"Dammit, Alice!" I shouted, my voice laced with joy. "You scared me!"

"The great and powerful Edward?" she gasped into my shoulder. "Don't be silly."

I rolled my eyes and parted, feeling uncharacteristically frail and… human. I liked it. My mind was in thirty different places. Alice could tell, as always.

"Is Jasper with you?" I asked, rubbing at my eyes. The lights were off in the loft and my eyes had become convinced reality was in the castle, in bright eternal daylight.

She nodded. "He's inspecting our food supply," she joked. I hoped. She danced her way around my room. "Rosalie's still with this Emmett fellow, not that you were going to ask."

"Yea, I've learned not to. She's never really stayed the next morning, has she? Must be special."

Alice was probably the easiest person to be around. She and I shared insights into people. Usually, before Bella, I could read minds at will, which makes me a psychic freak even among our kind. Alice saw futures, equally as freaky, and saw every stupid mistake I was going to make before I made it. It meant she knew why I did the things I did, even supported the stupider decisions in the name of some fate she refused to show me. It made her very calming, soothing at times, this once fleeting idea that I might be loved unconditionally despite my nature. I wouldn't call her my favorite sister – just because Rosalie would tear my limbs off and set me on fire – but she was.

"They're all special," she said knowingly. By then, I had completely forgotten what I'd said. Alice was taking this somewhere. "Especially Bella. Is she—How did you leave her?"

"She left _me_. Daylight. She had to go," I clarified. I needed us both to know that Bella had not left me out of choice. Again, it was a nice thought, if nothing more than a thought.

Alice nodded, understanding my double meaning. "I see. Miss her yet?"

I narrowed my eyes at her but hid a smile. "You knew I was going to turn her, didn't you? You knew I'd try to save her?"

She shrugged and mirrored my smile. "I don't know what you're talking about, Edward."

"Come on, Alice. It's just us. You have plans for her."

She shook her head and remained otherwise perfectly still. Though a ball of energy when around Rose or Carlisle and Esme or especially Jazz, she was oddly quiet around me. Again, it was soothing. "I really couldn't see. Well, I saw her die. You didn't choose to save her until that very second." I scoffed so she continued, reluctantly, "Though I must admit that, knowing you, there was no other choice but to save her."

I didn't reply right away, just stared at her tiny silhouette in my badly-lit room. I normally didn't bother turning on lights but since Bella infiltrated by mind, it would become odd not to have at least a lamp somewhere. It was almost a reminder of her.

"She's more than special, isn't she? This power she has over me… it's not normal," I whispered. I felt incapable of saying it higher as though afraid someone were listening in nearby.

She stepped forward into the light of the one little lamp in the corner, not that I needed light to see the way her brows rose. They urged me to say the words I couldn't say to myself, let alone another person.

"She's my mate… isn't she?"

At this, Alice's lips curled into a smile and silence filled in the rest. Of course, she'd never tell me that because of what the knowledge would mean for my future, my actions. But it didn't need to be said. I felt it, this light inside me

Jasper knocked on the back door softly, interrupting our silent conversation and string of realizations. He knew it wasn't a very good time, could feel it in the air, but he knocked nonetheless. "Uh… Alice?" he called. "There are a lot of people out here. Really juicy, young, voluptuous people. And while I would love to give you guys your little brother-sister bonding moment, I'm like an alcoholic at an open bar here!"

We laughed as Alice went to open the door. Jazz and I shared a manly hug and reinforced it with a manlier handshake. Though completely part of the family, he wasn't my brother. He was my brother-in-law. There would always be a wall there that limited our intimacy. I didn't share with him the way I did with Rose and Alice, though something told me he and Alice shared no secrets. Telling one meant telling the other. Everything Alice saw, Jasper might as well see. Until that day in my loft when it became obvious by Jasper's much-too-cheery expression that he had no clue what he was doing at my university, who Bella was, or what to do about all the little strands of fate that Alice was attempting to manipulate just for my happiness.

"How long are we here for?" he asked Alice. She would know. She knew everything. Except this.

"He hasn't decided yet," she answered bluntly, winding herself around Jasper's waist. "He's got a few choices to make first. It could go really badly or it could go fantastically. It's up to him."

I crossed my arms and grumbled, "Yea… no pressure there, Al."

She just smirked. Something about her seemingly tired eyes told me that her plotting was only just beginning and she was just as terrified as I was of what would happen if things went really, really wrong.

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**BELLA  
**-----

When I woke up, all the constant sounds and smells suddenly seemed softer and farther away. It was the knowledge that I was not going insane. I wasn't human but I wasn't alone. I was still left with this residual doubt about whether or not it'd been real but something about the tingles down to my toes was too hard to deny. Even if it was purely a creation of my psychotic mind, it was one I was desperate to believe. It felt too much like years ago when I allowed myself, like any other teenage girl, to believe I was in love.

I didn't love Edward, not yet. But I admired him, even lusted for him at times of weakness, seconds when I came to believe this was about fate and not doom.

The sounds had dulled so much that I had to go in search of Emmett just to make sure he really hadn't died at the hand of Edward's harpy sister. My mind was working much quicker, putting all the pieces together. Rosalie was a vampire. I had nearly broken the code last night. She was going to kill me for breaking this unspoken covenant. Edward had saved me, but no one had saved Emmett.

It took two seconds of worry for my feet to race me to Emmett's door on the other side of the dorm. I didn't bother knocking though I could hear breathing on the other side. One breath, rhythmic and calm. I sighed with relief but opened the door nonetheless, probably breaking the handle off. I didn't linger around to inspect my handiwork.

I raced to the bedroom and surely enough, Emmett was asleep, spread out with nothing but a thin sheet to cover his manhood. I sensed something odd about the room, like something was new or out of place, and whirled around. Rosalie was on the other side of the room sitting in a large chair. She wore crimson underwear. Her hair curled around her face and her eyes fixed themselves upon Emmett's human body on the bed, narrowed in contemplation.

"He's been sleeping like that for hours. Not a care in the world," she whispered, so low that only another vampire would hear. If she could, at that moment, she'd probably force the leaves to stop rustling outside just so nothing could wake him.

"It's what humans do," I replied, unsure of what to take from the situation.

She wasn't the same femme fatale I met the night before but people are seldom as strong as they were fully clothed. I tried not to look but even with vampire enhancements, I didn't have that body. I tried to control my envy. Emotions were different when you know you're not human anymore. They crash upon the soul like waves on the shore, rocking and rearranging the sand but parting quickly. Rosalie could see the flicker of envy in my eyes and smirked. She reached for her neatly folded clothes on the chair next to her and began to dress at normal human speed.

"He's odd," she told me, as though that were to explain everything that had happened in the room. "He's… kind."

Both my eyebrows shot up. She seemed genuinely surprised. I was genuinely surprised that _she_ was genuinely surprised. "Why is kindness odd? Why can't it be in everyone?"

Her eyes finally left Emmett and found mine. She stood before me so we were almost chest-to-chest, were she not a good half a foot above me in her heels, and tried to find some sarcasm in my tone. I just stood, slouching as always.

"You're so young," she whispered, hiding the laughter in her voice. I must have seemed like a child to her. For all intents and purposes, I was. In more ways than one. "I'm happy you remember. Edward will be glad to know."

She turned to leave but I clutched her arm and pulled her back. She flinched and I quickly let go. "I'm sorry! I'm still not used to my strength."

She didn't forgive me, just gave me a nod of understanding and waited for me to tell her what I'd so rudely manhandled her for.

"I just wanted you to tell Edward that I'll be there tonight. He doesn't have to worry about me."

She chuckled, no longer in control of her voice. Emmett stirred but didn't wake. I'd seen him fall asleep at monster truck rallies. This light hissing between immortal beings was nothing.

"Darling, Edward worries about everyone. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you'll realize that he's not like the rest of us."

"Of course not. He's a _vampire_," I hissed softly.

She chuckled dryly and leaned in as though she were sharing some big secret. "No, he's just lonely. And you, dear child, are the newest member of the family. Remember that. Remember that he worries when you let him know what I did to your friend Em."

"Did you drink from him?" I asked as she neared the door. A pause on both sides.

She turned around, a graceful swirl that I could never pull off, and smirked. "Another time," she answered and left.

I turned back to Emmett, still asleep and ignorant and beautifully human. I didn't know it then but the hunger was building. It was making me see him in a whole new light. He wasn't just my friend lying naked in bed after a night of passionate sex and he wasn't the guy who made first year math bearable. He was a snack. He was blood, pre-packaged in flimsy meat and bones and cartilage and… I gagged.

This was my friend! My best friend!

I got the hell out of there before I could take another breath of his air.

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**EDWARD  
**-----

"There's something wrong with her," said Rose, slamming my back door behind her.

"With whom?" I drawled, tossing the newspaper into a corner. I put on my best psychiatrist's face and pretended to give her my full attention.

"This Bella girl. She and Emmett. There's something wrong with them."

Already, I was bored. "I'm pretty sure there's something wrong with _us_, love. Remember that pesky relativity thing."

She cackled and kicked her heels into my wall. _Into_ my wall. I growled, annoyed, but she ignored me.

"I'm telling you. They're not human. They're… nice."

It was my turn to cackle. I hadn't seen this flustered look on Rose's face since Mardi Gras 1968.

"Why is that not normal?" I asked, dropping the face. She was getting at something and had probably forgotten her words. She was prone to doing so. Rose was shallow but she wasn't stupid. Still, whenever she entered into one of those rare, new situations, she sometimes forgot the eloquence her human mother had stuffed down her throat for 18 years.

"Emmett is sweet. He—He's the type of guy who'd hold my hand in a restaurant and apologize for looking down my dress, ya know?"

I bit my bottom lip, trying to stop the laughter. Rose looked at me like I'd gone insane. She probably hadn't seen me smile in years, let alone laugh. I don't know. I don't keep track of my brooding patterns. Just like it was rare for Rosie to find a nice guy, it was rare for me to act chipper, even at levels otherwise considered normal for any human being.

"I'm glad you met a nice guy, Rose," I said sincerely, going back to read my newspaper.

"Bella too. She's a good girl. Really good girl, if you know what I mean."

I did, but I pretended not to. "How so?"

"Virgin, baby," she answered bluntly, taking off her jacket and stripping off her clothes. They smelled like Emmett and latex. If I hadn't lived through Rosie's post-Woodstock nudist phase, I'd almost be surprised. "If not, she's at least got virgin sentimentality. She walked in on Emmett sleeping naked and I thought her eyes were going to fall out of her sockets."

"So what? They're good people. He treats her like a sister."

She nodded and sat on the couch before mine. It took her a moment to say as though still pondering the right words or even preparing me for the vulnerable reveal. "I—I don't know how to behave around them." It still caught me by surprise. I could see it in her mind, a gentle buzz of self-doubt. "I had to cajole him into bed, okay? How many guys do you know that have needed cajoling?"

"Andy Warhol?" I joked.

"That's so different and you know it. The man was gay as blazes." I nodded. She knew my utter hatred of all things Warhol. "Well, we know Emmett's straight as an arrow. He almost kept up with me. He's a superhero. That's what I mean. He can't be human."

"He's human, Rose. As for how to act, be the girl you were before you were turned. Act like the real you."

She rested her hands on her lap and looked across my living room. "Is that how you act with Bella?" she asked, her voice soft and vulnerable.

"Uh… Yea, I guess. I didn't really change much, remember? You did."

She nodded and continued to drift off into outer space, probably reliving last night with Super Emmett, while I tried to catch up on the events of the world yet again. I skipped to the bottom of page 5, to the important yet not so important news.

A girl had been found ripped to pieces in the woods two towns over.

I guess that wasn't too important in a big city full of nameless face but it was to us. The report said it looked like it was done with either machinery or, less likely, human teeth.

I winced. Rose missed it, deciding instead to go take a shower. She waltzed past me just as I folded the newspaper away. I didn't want her to read it. She'd know what I knew instantly. A vampire had killed that girl. Whether it was an accident or we had a very real predator nearby, I just prayed they stayed far away from Bella.

Rose poked her head out of the shower, her hair lathered to death in white shampoo bubbles. This humanity thing was getting silly. I'd been shocked more in the last month than I had all year. "We should all get together, now that Alice and Jazz are here."

"They're taking a walk around campus. They'll be back in an hour," I answered blindly. That wasn't her suggestion, question, or implication.

"No, idiot. Triple date. If Emmett even wants to see me again."

I scoffed. "If you haven't broken him, I'm sure he'd love to."

"Good! Yes! You're right! Call up Bella."

My heart shriveled up. I didn't know why but I didn't want to see her again. I was terrified to, just like Rose was unsure how to act. It was easy in the dreams. I could probably make her forget anything unpleasant. I had endless time to correct myself. In the real world, there was just reality. If I messed up, I was done. Period. She'd be pissed at me or worse, disgusted by me. I wasn't sure if I could control myself around her. Her scent alone was superhuman.

"I—I don't have her number," I lied. "Besides, she has class and has to study and I don't even know if she'll remember to sleep—"

Rosie pursed her lips at me. "Stop making excuses. Besides, she said she'd be _there_ tonight. Guaranteed. Let her know then."

I sighed with relief. It was always up in the air whether she'd return, whether she'd even remember, whether she'd want any more of me once she woke up.

"Relax, Edward," said Rose from the shower. "You've already won her."

"Yea," I whispered, breathless. "That's what they keep telling me."

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_Vampire lessons coming soon! More disastrous dates soon to follow. I'm sorry I haven't been posting more regularly but I'm computerless until further notice. Gah.  
_

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